


the war that spared no one

by galactoc



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Canonical Character Death, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-29 01:43:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14462373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galactoc/pseuds/galactoc
Summary: He's willing to sacrifice her for power. She hopes that when he sits back on his throne, looking out at what he thinks is peace, that he remembers her face, and knows the price was never, ever worth what he reaped.





	the war that spared no one

The destruction amounts little by little until it hits him like a freight train, all at once, too soon and unwanted. In only a matter of minutes, Thanos had destroyed everything around him; all that's left is the spinning corpses of his people, strong Asgardians who could barely put up a fight, wrecked ruins of the ship and hope that slips away into despair, into nothingness.

Ugly. All of his minions are hideous. Powerful. One bends metal and debris with a slide of his fingers, and Thor suddenly can't move. His muscles are already strained and aching, body on the verge of shutting down, so thrashing against the binds accomplishes nothing. 

He watches, with slowly mounting dread, his brother step towards Thanos. Uttering meaningless words, words of empty promises and false allegiances. At least, Thor hopes they're false. 

He watches the dagger materialize between Loki's fingers. And the God of Mischief curves his arm upwards, in a descent so sudden yet too, too slow, and his wrist is stopped.

He watches the slow suffocation, Loki growing pale, growing stiff, until he almost ceases movement and is thrown, discarded on the floor.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," whispers Loki as Thor bends over his dying body, lips blue and black. And the ship around them warps apart but Thor can only sob, let himself feel everything and nothing even as the ground disintegrates beneath him and the world, to his eyes, begins to wilt.

* * *

Thanos had shed a tear for her. A real tear, in his twisted, psychotic mind. Nothing for the millions he had slaughtered, the genocides that had torn families apart and left planets ravaged and scarred, but a tear for the little green girl he had taken so long ago.

She remembers the awe she had felt at the sight of the weapon. The wonder and hope budding within her when she had previously been afraid. He had come to take that fear away. The delicate blades balancing on his finger, enormous compared to her own hand, the gleaming ruby set in the middle like a prize.

"Concentrate," he had said, "Balance it," and she did, while behind her back his troops slaughtered half of her people and littered the planet with blood that would never be washed out.

Now he sheds a tear. For her.

She backs away, step by step.

She couldn't let Nebula die. The way Thanos hadn't hesitated in tearing her apart, piece by piece, part machine but still human enough to feel the pain and scream for life. Gamora had surrendered, given up the stone, and now she would have to give up herself. 

Thanos wants the Soul Stone. He's willing to sacrifice her for power. She hopes that when he sits back on his throne, looking out at what he thinks is peace, that he remembers her face, and knows the price was never, ever worth what he reaped. 

But she knows that will never happen.

And when she is thrown off the edge of the cliff down into somewhere unknown, she only thinks of Peter. 

* * *

The knife sending splitting pain up the side of his body is nothing compared to the tightening feeling of his chest as everybody begins to disintegrate. He remembers the look in Thanos' eyes when he found the second-to-last stone. A man hungry for power like nothing imaginable.

"Why would you do that?" he asks Dr. Strange, bone-deep tired, after the sorcerer gives up the emerald. 

"It was the only way," he only replies, and fades into nothing.

Tony whirls around. "Quill," he says, as the man disappears, and Peter breathes, "Motherfucker," before winking out of existence.

Then a voice behind him. "Mr. Stark," groans Peter, on the verge of doubling over, "Mr. Stark, I don't feel so good."

"You're alright," says Tony, but he's anything but, and his heart hurts. Peter stumbles nearer. Why had he let him come on the ship? Why had he endangered an innocent child's life, recklessly and brutally, without care, without thought? And now... now he was...

"I don't want to go," says Peter, and he clutches onto Tony, loops an arm under his own and digs his face into the crook of his neck. "Please, I don't want to go," and Tony can only grab him back with all his might, one arm around his back. 

"Please, I don't want to go," and Peter falls, taking Tony with him, but Tony falls onto nothing because the boy has dissolved away into the space and stars.

In a matter of minutes, everyone had left. Tony stumbles down onto a rock, with the sun shining still, and can't even cry.

* * *

 "Steve?" calls Bucky.

Steve turns around and reaches, but Bucky's gone too quickly.

* * *

Wanda pushes through it, pushes through the pained screams of her lover, looks behind her to see Thanos approaching and doubles the strength of her force. She looks into Vision's eyes before there's an unimaginable pulse of power, yellow that explodes through the forest outwards.

When it all settles down there is nothing but his remains and the stone is dead.

Thanos fumes behind her and with a twist of his hand, reassembles the pieces. Wanda watches Vision die for a second time, as the stone is ripped from his forehead, and the color fades from his uniform. He falls to the ground, lifeless.

Wanda only watches as Thor explodes through a crash of thunder and slices the axe right through the tyrant's heart.

Relief overwhelms her. The grief is only just settling. But Vision died for something. He died for the Universe.

"You should've aimed for the head," says Thanos, and there's only blinding white.

 


End file.
